Obsessed with fairtrade

The thing about Fairtrade is it makes you feel good about yourself when you eat. And for a girl especially, that doesn't happen often. Exept for the Foer book my mom also got me some sugar and candy with Fairtrade labels from Sweden. So now I'm eating unhealthy, BUT with a clear conscience. Thank you mommy!

For you with less amazing moms, visit the Doing Good Accessories Store.

The Real Good deed

Let's not forget to report about Fairtrade coffee day! I had coffee and sticky yummy chocolate cake with my boyfriend. The Fairtrade labeled coffee I found tastes really good! Better than the Jacobs I usally drink. And the cacao was just like any other cacao.

Recepie for my sticky Swedish chocolate cake:

1. Set oven temperature to 175 degrees
2. Melt 100 g of butter. Add 2 eggs and 3 dl of sugar.
3. Mix 3 table spoons of (Fairtrade labeled!) cacao, a little bit of vanilla in the form you prefer and a tiny bit of salt with 1,5 dl of flower. Add to batter.
4. Pour the batter into a baking tin (greased with butter) and bake it for 30 minutes. You know it's ready when it looks ready on the outside. The inside should be sticky! Serve with whipped cream. Yum!

Shape up Greece!

I found two Fairtrade labeled products in my supermarket! It's one brand of coffee and a cocoa. I was so happy to find them that it took me a while before I started thinking about why I haven't seen them before. But it's actually pretty obvious why, and the reson is annoying as hell.

These products are in the supermarket as they are organic and have been placed on the shelf with "organic foods". You can not find the organic coffee next to the other coffee brands. Only in this specific part of the store. Imagine that my supermarket is as huge as... probably 500 sq.m It has 4 floors and I don't know how many hundreds of customers in a day, and they have 2 things with a Fairtrade label. These aren't imported for the label. That I was able to find them was a total coincidence.

This article, written by Katia Antoniadi, confirms my suspicions. For those of you who don't read Greek, I can tell you that the article also says 65 % of the Greeks don't know the meaning of the words "fair trade". And that from the few Greek companies that even replyed to a survey, made by Consumers International, the commercial directors didn't know what products were in this category.

It's clear to anyone that this is an area in which Greece has to improve. I will do my part. Friends are hereby invited to my Fairtrade Coffee on Wednesday. Shall we say around seven?

Free shipping at Amazon

A small tip. If you buy things for £25 or more from Amazon right now you get shipping for free to these countries:

Greece, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Andorra, Finland, Gibraltar, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Vatican city and Poland!

So if you were planning to buy some stuff from my Doing Good Accessories Store for example you should do it now!

Fairtrade Challange - so awesome!

In Sweden, where I'm from, Fairtrade is arranging something awesome.

On wedensday, the 27th of october, anyone who wants can join in having a coffee break with Fairtrade products. So far 306.842 people have reported that they're going to join in! To join you simply invite your friends to your house for a coffee / bring sweets to work and have a coffee break with your colleagues or whatever. You use one or more Fairtrade labeled products. You let fairtrade know you are having the coffee and afterwards you report your result. It's so simple and a great way to spread knowledge about the difference you can make when you choose the right products.

The person who invites the most people, the supermarket who invited the most other stores to join, the one who uses more fairtrade products and the one who gets the best pictures of the event, will win some really nice prices. You might for example get to visit one of the producing countries working with fairtrade!

I think this is a fantastic idea, and I'm jealous of all the swedes who get to be part of it! So don't you miss this!

By the way, maybe it isn't impossible for me to join. I just gotta find some fairtrade labeled stuff. All you greeks, are you interested in something like this?! If I invite you, will you come to my fairtrade coffee? (I know you're reading, so just post a "yes" or "no" in the comments field. Be anonymous if you like.)

The Doing Good Accessories Store

I have created a store on Amazon where you can find a bunch of Fairtrade labeled products! There's a link to it in the column to the right. I call it the Doing Good Accessories Store. It's mainly coffees and teas but also some other stuff. It's worth checking out! I think some of these things might make excellent Christmas presents. Like this gift bag of holiday teas from Davidson's:

Click on the image for more info.

Fair trade, Greece, hello?!

So I've been going a little crazy over the fact that it's so difficult to find products you can trust to not have harmed anybody in the making process. So many farmers and workers in the developing countries are struggling to get food on their tables, and the reason is unfair trading rules.

The only way I know to sort out the safe products is to look for the Fairtrade label, and that didn't seem to be available in Greece. But apparently it is! It's just not in the supermarkets. Fairtrade Hellas have got a shop in the centre of Athens, close to the Acropolis metro station, and they told me on the phone that they do have Fairtrade labeled products for sale. So for those of you who live in the center, check it out. I will when I get a chance. (Note though that Fairtrade Hellas doesn't seem to be connected to the International Fairtrade Organization in other than the name and that they sell the products.)

Still not happy about not finding something better than this. I want to see these labels in the supermarket. What am I missing? Can Greece really be so low on people caring about the world that there is no demand for these things?

Make an exception from your "silence is golden" ideas people and write a comment! Wouldn't you want the option to just pay a few cents more for coffee, for example, and know that by doing this you are preventing poverty and not harming the environment?

What if I open an e-shop. Would you buy your sugar, coffee and tea from me?